I’m deeply curious about the implementation of a carbon tax on large corporations, as it seems like an economically straightforward means of beginning to combat climate change on a larger scale. However, I’m not certain of the specifics/variety of carbon taxes which have been proposed and also lack a sufficient knowledge of economics to know if there are any difficult-to-discern downsides to the concept (My education is in ecology so I’m only seeing benefits of such an idea). I’d love to be more educated on the topic, and know why it hasn’t received widespread acceptance yet.
In: Economics
A carbon tax requires companies that produce carbon to pay an extra tax. This increases the costs for things like coal and natural gas power plants. Which reduces their profits. Subsequently it also makes alternative energy producers such as nuclear, wind and solar more competitive which further reduces their profits.
A carbon tax would do wonders for reducing carbon output, combating climate change and making energy production markets more competetively priced. But it would negatively impact profits for companies relying on fossil fuels. So they are doing everything they can to stop a carbon tax from being implemented.
Fossil fuel companies dont care all that much about climate change. What they care about is staying in business, keeping their thousands of employees employed and making money.
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